Melissa and Joe Gorga's relationship is on full display every week on Bravo's "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," but now the reality star couple is offering a behind-the-scenes look into their marriage, and it's causing a lot of controversy.
Melissa Gorga's new book, "Love Italian Style: The Secrets of My Hot and Happy Marriage," which features some passages written by Joe Gorga, is being blasted by critics who say the mother-of-three's tips on how to use sex as a tool to keep her husband happy amount to "sexism and caveman logic."
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One reviewer even accused the book of "advocating marital rape."
"It's very clear — from her anecdotes, observations, and tips — that she's married to a controlling a—hole that barely views her as human, let alone an equal,"
Jezebel's Tracie Egan Morrissey wrote. "He won't 'allow' her to go on overnight trips without him, he has a say in the clothes she wears, didn't want her to get a job (even before she became a mother), and he has gotten violent when Melissa does things that he doesn't like."
Cosmopolitan.com even slammed it as
"terrible, sexist, and dangerous."
Melissa Gorga has since defended her book on Twitter.
Here are the most controversial excerpts from "Love Italian Style":
"Men, I know you think your woman isn't the type who wants to be taken. But trust me, she is. Every girl wants to get her hair pulled once in a while. If your wife says "no," turn her around, and rip her clothes off. She wants to be dominated."
"[A] woman needs to keep herself in shape. She has to be seductive. She must be willing to try new things for her husband's pleasure and her own. And, most important, she has to be available for sex."
"Even when I'm exhausted and not really in the mood, if it means a lot to Joe that we connect physically, I'll say, 'I'm not so into it tonight, but let's go.' If it's a hard 'no,' I try to be nice about it. Don't swat him away, or say with a tone, 'Leave me alone!' Eventually he will leave you alone at more than you wish he would."
"The way I see it, if a wife is a puttana, her husband will never feel the urge to go outside the marriage to actual whores, or strip clubs."
"His style was to make corrections and to teach me from the beginning days of our marriage exactly how he envisioned our life together."
"If I ran out to CVS and he came home from work to an empty house, he didn't like it. He'd call me and say, 'I don't care if you're out all day long. But I don't want to come home to an empty house.'"
"It's my job to clean up spilled milk. I just do it."
"In our marriage, Joe is always the man, doing masculine things. I'm the woman, and I do the female things, including housework."
"Girls don't poop. Me, never have. Never will. It just doesn't happen. Or, that's what Joe thinks! We've been married for nine years, and he has never once seen or smelled my business. How have I pulled this off? I don't do it when he's around or awake."
"I also aspire to be eye candy for my husband."
"Joe never wears a wedding band. Joe has really chubby fingers (he will tell you so, too), and he thinks that a ring is the most uncomfortable thing ever. It used to bother me, but now I just tell myself that a wedding band is more of a chick magnet."
"Listen, we all love to hang out with our single friends. Who's more fun? But, let's call a spade a spade. You can't make a habit of it when you are married."
"If he gets one ounce of flack from me, he flips a switch and goes off."
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